Creationists

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i am sure dawkins never implied such a thing... not even after listening to him a few times...

a map like the one he showed is also available for languages.... depending on the geographic location of where you were born, you will likely speak a certain language... it is even more pronounced then the religion map.

people on one side of a border speak one language, and another on the other side.

your (main) language seems to be dependent on the geographic location you were born.

your argument can be applied: you can empty denmark for people and let chinese people move in, and they won't start speaking danish.

danish is spoken on danish soil, but danish soil doesn't make you speak danish.

but that is a bit along the following obvious line of logic: a cow is an animal, but an animal is not a cow.

Oh good, then he and I agree on this point. Thanks for the clarification.

hooray for benbob...

very well put.

Agreed: well put.


Haha, and the Danes would be quite upset if they did.

Missing the point. Historically (19th century) criticism of the Bible has been that it can't possibly be true because there was never any evidence that those places ever actually existed. No critic in the present-day would dare try to "debunk" the Bible by making the same claims since many if not most of those Biblical locations have been unearthed.

LDS, as an example, can't back up the Book of Mormon by the same Christian claims about the Holy Land. It is one of their key weaknesses, and seems to be an embarrassment. Anyone who admits to the archeological failures of BofM will promptly get kicked out of BYU.

Regarding Norse mythology and other world religions--there is no difference on this point. There are any number of ways you can attack the validity of the religion--but not on the basis that those places never existed!

Further--the opposite logic also applies. Just because a place is mentioned in fiction doesn't mean that place doesn't exist. New York and Tokyo DO exist.

However, Kong and 'Zilla are KNOWN fictional accounts. The settings of fictional plots merely serve as backdrops for the action and, in the films mentioned, are representative of certain values that in the mind of the audience are tied to those cities (not EVERYONE is a New Yorker, but New York holds a fascination and it's own sort of legend in the minds of many more rural Americans). The New York of Kong does not actually exist in reality, and neither does 'Zilla's Tokyo. You can also verify that the events described in those films certainly never happened. You cannot with any degree of certainty say this about events recorded in the Bible.

It does still hold that a place existing does not "prove" on its own that events said of it ever happened. But you cannot attack the Bible's veracity on the grounds that the places never existed. Neither is there any surety that the Bible really is fiction. I'd LOVE to see evidence that myths were ever intended to be factual accounts of the workings of the gods.

the thing here is for me, as an atheist i now have the same information for several very different religions, so how do i actually differentiate between them?

they are all based on the same "pieces" of information and the same general principle, to an extent.

OK then.

No, 'tis you that has missed the point. There is no independently corroborative evidence to support the Bible as anything other than a collection of largely apocryphal stories of doubtful veracity.

There are two key events that support this:

1. About 400 years BCE, the Jews allegedly returned to Jerusalem. According to Biblical accounts, the history of the Jews was told to them by a scribe who had written his own version from a few armfuls of parchment scrolls that were allegedly rescued from the Temple. Thus, everything we know about the "Old Testament" from before about 400 BCE comes to us through one man or a small group of men who wanted to establish themselves as the ruling authority over their fellow Jews.

2. The earliest writing of the life of Jesus appeared a few decades after His alleged death. It did not include any of His history from the time before He began His ministry. Later writings embellished on the Gospel of Mark, adding alleged accounts of His birth, His childhood, His miracles, and so forth.

People accept the Bible on faith, and we all know about faith...

So just to be clear here You are stating that for example not of the 34 Archaeological sites listed Here and the writings of Tacitus, Joephus, Pliney (sorry both Pliney the Elder and his nephew Pliney the Younger are historians and I can never remember which one wrote about christianity) and even the Talmud are not independent, corroborative or evidence?

Yes, people do accept the Bible on faith, But it is not a faith that denies rational thought. As for you I do not think you do know about faith. Unfortunately, if you ask the average christian to define faith they will almost immediately drop into Hebrews 11 and start with "Faith is the assurance of things hoped for..." What they lack in their reply is context. The aforementioned chapter is dealing with the faith of the saint of the Old Testament, and in as much it is accurate. However the next chapters go on to say the difference now is that we have seen Christ and as believers out faith is no longer in the hope for something yet to come but in the Godman (Homoousios with God) Jesus known as the Christ. We believe in his work before His birth, His birth, His life, death on a Roman cross, resurrection on the third day, ascension and coming parousia.

The New Testament started being written around 37 AD (5-7 years after the death of Jesus) and was completed before the end of that same century (possibly AD 70 from textual evidence) During this time Dis disciples were still alive, as were thousands of others who could have testified tot he truth either way. The simple fact is we have more textual evidence of the life of Christ closer to the sources than we have of many other pieces of Roman and Greek history.

- Hmm I can't post a link yet (too few posts) the "Here" can be found by searching for facingthechallenge and archaeology

I can visit Iceland and Russia. That doesn't mean that Tom Clancy novels are anything more than entertaining fiction.

I don't think anyone doubts they were written by people of that era and area. That's not really the interesting part.

In short; wishful thinking

ruveyn

Actually admitting that they were written by writers of and in that era and area is a step in the right direction. However you are oversimplifying the situation, it is more like finding a book which claims something that you have know knowledge of exists and going to where it says it exists and finding it there.

There is a book. For security reasons title withheld. A work of fiction, patently. Not bad, though not my usual sort of thing.

It describes in detail the relationships, professional and otherwise, in an institution linked to a British university. Fiction - but the places and characters are precise records of a certain institution I have known at a time judst before I got there - I KNOW I know some of the people and that people I know know most of them.

Makes you wonder how much of the less than public knowledge material is for real.

Well, you may claim to have found mystical wisdom but Ive known many lapsed christians who feel they were just fooling themselves. And there are members of other religions who claim the same thing.

And my point about era wasn't admitting anything. I'm using era broadly.

Last edited by simon_says on 12 Jun 2011, 2:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Remind me to tell you the course evaluations sometime. Being in church does not mean you get it - believe me. Christianity is not inherited, each has to get there his own route / timing.